Chapter IV

Solar Mythology (Continued)

IN Norse mythology we find, as we might expect, many solar myths and sun heroes, whose knightly qualities and redoubtable prowess enable them to accomplish seemingly impossible tasks, and vanquish the most formidable of foes.

Odin governs the high heavens, and the sun is referred to as Odin's eye. Thor rules in the clouds. He is identified as a Sun-God, and, like Hercules, distinguished himself as the enemy of the powers of cold and darkness. He conquers the frost giants. Heimdal's realm is the rainbow, and Balder rules the realm of light, but the sun affects them all. "It is," says Anderson, 1 "Odin's eye, Balder's countenance; Heimdal needs it for his rainbow, and still the sun itself rides as a beaming maid with her horses from morning until evening."

In the following graceful Finnish myth we find the sun represented as a lamp illuminating the halls of Vanna Issa, the Supreme Deity, and entrusted

by him to the care of two immortal servants, a youth and a maiden. "To the maiden who is called 'Evening Twilight,' the ancient Father saith: 'My daughter, unto thee I entrust the Sun, extinguish him and hide away the fire that no damage may ensue.' Then to the Dawn: 'My son, it is thy duty to rekindle the light for a new course. On no day is the light to be absent from the arch of heaven.'

"In winter he resteth a great while, but in summer his repose is short, and Evening Twilight gives up the dying light into the very hands of Dawn who straightway kindles it into new life. At such times they each take one look deep into the other's dark brown eyes; they press each other's hands, and their lips touch. Once a year only for the space of four weeks they come together at midnight. Then Evening Twilight layeth the dying light into the hands of Dawn, and a pressure of hands and a kiss make them happy, and the cheeks of Evening Twilight redden, and the rosy redness is mirrored in the sky till Dawn rekindles the light."

The following myth of the "Witch and the Sun's Sister" reveals another type of sun myth involving the actions of members of the Sun's family. In some of these myths the Sun's son figures, and however capricious the Sun may act, the legends

that relate to his family indicate that they were kindly disposed toward humankind, and in many of the myths they act the part of benefactors.

In a country far remote there were once a king and a queen, who had a son named Prince Ivan, who was dumb from birth. A groom told the Prince that he was destined to have a sister who would prove to be a terrible witch, and advised him to flee lest harm befall him, He took the advice, and his father provided him with a swift horse on which he took his flight.

After wandering far he sought a dwelling-place in vain, first with two women, then with a giant who was uprooting trees, and lastly with a giant who was levelling mountains. Finally, he came to the dwelling of the Sun's sister, and she received him just as if he had been her own son. After a time, Prince Ivan longed to return to his old home, and persuaded the Sun's sister to allow him to depart. On his homeward journey he was enabled, by magic bestowed on him by the Sun's sister, to assist the two women and the giants who had refused to take him in because of trials which beset them.

On his home-coming his sister, the wicked witch, laid plans to destroy him; but he was warned in time by a mouse, and though closely pursued by the witch he escaped her clutches through the

The mythology of the North American Indians contains many examples of the solar myth. One of their Sun-Gods was Michabo, whose name signifies the Great Hare, the Great White One, or the God of the Dawn, and the East. It is said that he slept through the winter months, and in the fall when he was about to seek repose, he filled his great pipe, and the blue clouds of smoke that he exhaled drifted over the landscape filling the air with the veil-like haze of Indian Summer.

Michabo was regarded by the Indians as their common ancestor, and the ruler of the numerous tribes, the founder of their religious ritual and the inventor of their art of picture-writing. He controlled the weather, and was the creator and preserver of heaven and earth. The totem or clan which was dedicated to him was revered with the greatest respect.

In Myths and Myth Makers, by John Fiske, we read the following poetical description of Michabo, the Indian solar deity:

"From a grain of sand brought from the bottom of the primeval ocean he fashioned the habitable land, and set it floating on the waters till it grew to such a size that a strong young wolf running

constantly died of old age ere he reached its limits. He was also like Nimrod a mighty hunter. 1 One of his footsteps measured eight leagues. The Great Lakes were the beaver dams he built, and when the cataracts impeded his progress, he tore them away with his hands. Sometimes he was said to dwell in the skies with his brother, the Snow, or like many great spirits to have built a wigwam in the far north in some floe of ice in the Arctic Ocean. In the oldest accounts of the missionaries he was alleged to reside toward the east. He is the personification of the solar life-giving power, which daily comes forth from its home in the east making the earth to rejoice."

A Modoc Indian myth relates that every day the Sun is utterly destroyed, and reduced to a heap of ashes, but inasmuch as the Sun is immortal, the disk lies dormant in the ashes waiting its summons to renewed life. Some one must, therefore, rouse the slumbering Sun each morning, as a slave is called to daily labour, and this office is performed by the morning star. At the summons to awake, the golden disk springs from the ashes rejuvenated, and goes forth to run his course. Here we have

a legend similar to that of the Phœnix, the mythical bird which rose from lifeless ashes once in five centuries.

The following Cherokee legend is one of the most interesting solar myths related by the Indians:

"The Sun lived on the other side of the sky vault but her daughter lived in the middle of the sky directly above the earth, and every day as the Sun was climbing along the sky arch to the west, she used to stop at her daughter's house for dinner.

"Now the Sun hated the people of the earth because they could never look straight at her without screwing up their faces. She said to her brother, the Moon: 'My grandchildren are ugly, they grin all over their faces when they look at me.' But the Moon said: 'I like my younger brothers.' They always smiled pleasantly at him when they saw him in the sky for his rays were milder. The Sun was jealous and planned to kill all the people. So every day when she got near her daughter's house she sent down such sultry rays that there was a great fever, and the people died by hundreds. They went for help to the Little Men who said the only way to save themselves was to kill the Sun. The Little Men made medicine, and changing two men to snakes sent them to bite the old Sun when she came next day, but the light of the Sun blinded them, and they were unable to harm the Sun.

[paragraph continues] Again the Little Men were appealed to, and changing a man into a rattlesnake they sent him to bite the Sun, but instead of the Sun the snake bit the Sun's daughter, and she died from the bite. Now was the Sun sad and people did not die any more, but now the world was dark all the time because the Sun would not come out. Again they appealed to the Little Men who told them they must appease the Sun by bringing back her daughter from the ghost country. Seven men were chosen to seek the daughter, and bring her back in a box. They were charged not to open the box after she was put into it. They succeeded in their quest, and started home with the daughter safe in a box. She pleaded so hard to be let out that when they were almost home they opened the box only a little way, but this was enough, and something flew past them into a thicket, and they heard a red bird cry, 'Kwish,' 'Kwish,' in the bushes. They shut down the lid but when they got home the box was empty. The Sun had been glad when they started for the ghost country, but when they came back without her daughter she grieved and cried and wept until her tears made a flood upon the earth, and people were afraid the world would be drowned.

"They held another council and sent their handsomest young men and women to amuse her

so that she would stop crying. They danced before the Sun and sang their best songs, but for a long time she kept her face covered and paid no attention until at last the drummer suddenly changed the song, when she lifted up her face and was so pleased at the sight that she forgot her grief and smiled." 1

It is a significant fact that we find here a legend in respect to the propitiation of the sun identical with the Japanese myth related above, where, because of the retirement of the Sun-Goddess into her cave, men made every effort to conciliate her, and, finally, by a ceremony of singing and dancing, they won her back to her place in the sky.

Another Cherokee Indian myth relates that several young warriors once set out on a journey to the sunrise land. On the way they had many strange adventures, and finally they came to the sun's rising place, where the sky touches the ground. They discovered that the sky was an arch of solid rock hanging above the earth, and it seemed to swing slowly up and down, so that as it rocked it left a little opening at its base through which the sun rose each morning.

The adventurers waited for the sun to come out and presently it appeared. It had a human figure, but it was too bright to permit of their seeing its

features clearly. As soon as it had emerged through the opening they tried to leap through the narrow orifice before it was closed, but just as the first warrior was passing through, the rock rim of the sky closed and crushed out his life. The others were afraid to make the attempt after this fatality, and returned home, and the return trip took them such a long time that when they at length reached the end of their journey they were all old men.

In another version of this myth, three brothers undertook the journey, and the two younger ones succeeded in leaping through the opening. The older brother attempted to follow, but he was crushed by the great rock rim of the sky. The two successful brothers continued journeying in a land where everything is different, and presently met their elder brother. They all proceeded to the house of the Supreme Deity, whose messenger the Sun was, and were purified and built over. They now possessed magic qualities which enabled them to perform wonderful feats of speed and strength. After a time they returned to their native village, but, like Rip Van Winkle, no one knew them save an old woman.

One of the most beautiful of the solar myths of the Indians is the Algonquin "Legend of the Red Swan" which is as follows: 1

"The hunter Ojibwa had just killed a bear, and begun to skin him when suddenly something red tinged all the air around. Reaching the shore of a lake the Indian saw it was a beautiful red swan whose plumage glittered in the sun. In vain the hunter shot his shafts, for the bird floated unharmed and unheeding, but at last he remembered three magic arrows at home which had been his father's. The first and second arrows flew near and nearer, the third struck the swan, and flapping its wings it flew slowly towards the sinking of the sun."

Longfellow has adapted this beautiful episode as a sunset picture in one of his Indian poems:

Can it be the sun descending O’er the level plain of water? Or the Red Swan floating, flying, Wounded by the magic arrow, Staining all the waves with crimson With the crimson of its life-blood Filling all the air with splendour With the splendour of its plumage?

The story goes on to tell how the hunter speeds westward in pursuit of the Red Swan. "At lodges where he rests, they tell him she has often passed there, but those who followed her have never returned. She is the daughter of an old magician who has lost his scalp which Ojibwa succeeds in

recovering for him and puts back on his head, and the old man rises from the earth no longer aged and decrepit but splendid in youthful glory. Ojibwa departs and the magician calls forth the beautiful maiden, now not his daughter, but his sister, and gives her to his victorious friend. It was in after days when Ojibwa had gone home with his bride that he travelled forth and coming to an opening in the earth descended and came to the abode of departed spirits, there he could behold the bright western region of the good, and the dark cloud of wickedness. But the spirits told him that his brethren at home were quarrelling for the possession of his wife, and at last after long wandering this Red Indian Odysseus returned to his mourning, constant Penelope, laid the magic arrows to his bow, and stretched the wicked suitors dead at his feet.

"Thus savage legends from Polynesia and America may well support the theory that Odysseus visiting the Elysian fields and Orpheus descending to the land of Hades to bring back the wide-shining Eurydikê are but the Sun himself descending to and ascending from the world below."

The Algonquin deity Manabozho was a personification of the sun, for, in an Ottawa myth, he is referred to as the elder brother of the Spirit of the West, God of the country of the dead in the region

of the setting sun, and his solar character is further revealed in the legend of his vain pursuit of the West, his brother, to the brink of the world.

According to a Peruvian myth, Viracocha, the Supreme God of the Peruvians, rose from the bosom of Lake Titicaca, and journeying westward overcame all the foes that opposed him, and disappeared at length into the western sea, thus portraying his true solar character.

Faber 1 tells us that the ancient Mexicans believed that the world was made by the gods, but professed ignorance as to the precise mode in which it was formed. "They imagined that since the creation four suns had successively appeared and disappeared, and they maintained that that which we now behold is the fifth. The first sun perished by a deluge of water, and with it all living creatures. The second fell from heaven at a period when there were many giants in the country and by the fall everything that had life was again destroyed. The third was consumed by fire and the fourth was dissipated by a tempest of wind. At that time mankind did not perish as before but were changed into apes, yet when the fourth sun was blotted out there was a darkness which continued twenty-five years. At the end of the fifteenth

year their chief god formed a man and a woman who brought forth children, and at the end of the other ten years appeared the fifth sun then newly born. Three days after this last sun became visible all the former gods died, then in process of time were produced those whom they have since worshipped."

The Egyptians had a legend which in some respects is so similar to that of the Mexican myth related above that it would almost appear as if the two originated from the same source. They told Herodotus that, according to their records, the sun had four times deviated from his regular course, having twice risen in the west, and twice set in the east. This change, however, had produced no alteration in the climate of Egypt, neither had a greater prevalence of disease been the consequence.

Among the Maoris of New Zealand we find a myth that depicts dramatically the setting sun as it goes to its death through the western portals of the night. Because of its interest as a pronounced type of the solar myth it is given in detail:

"Maui, the New Zealand cosmic hero, at the end of his glorious career came back to his father's country and was told that here perhaps he might be overcome, for here dwelt his mighty ancestress 'Great-Woman-Night,' whom you may see flashing,

and as it were opening and shutting there where the horizon meets the sky. What you see yonder shining so brightly red are her eyes, and her teeth are as sharp and hard as pieces of volcanic glass. Her body is like that of a man, and as for the pupils of her eyes they are jasper. Her hair is like the tangles of long seaweed, and her mouth is like that of a barracouta.

"Maui boasted of his former exploits, and said: 'Let us fearlessly seek whether men are to die or live forever.' But his father called to mind an evil omen that when he was baptising Maui he had left out part of the fitting prayers and therefore he knew that his son must perish, yet he said: 'O my last born, and the strength of my old age, . . . be bold, go and visit your great ancestress who flashes so fiercely there where the edge of the horizon meets the sky.' Then the birds came to Maui to be his companions in the enterprise, and it was evening when they went with him, and they came to the dwelling of his mighty ancestress, and found her fast asleep. Maui charged the birds not to laugh when they saw him creep into the old chieftainess, but when he had got altogether inside her, and was coming out of her mouth, then they might laugh long and loud. So Maui stripped off his clothes and crept in. The birds kept silence, but when he was in up to his

waist the little tiwakawaka could hold its laughter no longer, and burst out loud with its merry note, then Maui's ancestress awoke, closed on him, and caught him tight and he was killed. Thus died Maui, and thus death came into the world.

"The New Zealanders hold that the sun descends at night into his cavern, bathes in the water of Life, and returns at dawn from the underworld; hence we may interpret their thought that if Man could likewise descend into Hades and return, his race would be immortal.

"It is seldom that solar characteristics are more distinctly marked in the several details of a myth than they are here. Great-Woman-Night who dwells on the horizon is the New Zealand Hades. The birds are to keep silence as the sun enters night, but may sing when he comes forth from her mouth, the mouth of Hades. The tiwakawaka describes the cry of the bird which is only heard at sunset." 1

One of the most wide-spread and best-known sun myths relates to the devouring of the day by the night monster at set of sun, and the disgorging of the victim by the devourer in the morning. A Zulu legend describes the maw of this sun-devouring monster as a land teeming with human life,

and its environment, and when the monster is cut open, all the creatures issue forth from the state of darkness, the cock leading, exclaiming: "I see the world."

The well-known fairy tale of "Little Red Riding-Hood" is a sun myth of this type, and in Germany there is added to the tale the fact that, after the wolf had devoured his victim, a hunter slew the wolf, ripped him open, when out stepped the little maiden in her red cloak, safe and sound.

There is a legend current in Germany that relates to a frog that wooed the daughters of a queen. The youngest daughter consented to become his bride, and this gracious act on her part freed the frog from a magic spell, and he was transformed into a handsome youth.

"This tale," says Professor Max Müller, 1 "is solar in its character, and but another version of the Sanscrit story of Bhekî the frog who became the wife of a king only to vanish at the sight of a glass of water, a legend that grew out of a phrase which was possibly, 'the sun dies at the sight of water.'"

Another ancient myth that has come down to us relates to the mystic meeting of the sunlight and moonlight. The light of the sun was a king's daughter who, on a certain day asked to be allowed

to walk unattended in the streets of a great city. The king consented, and ordered all the citizens to remain indoors behind closed shutters on that day and refrain from looking out. A minister, who was really the moonlight, could not restrain his curiosity. He stepped out on his balcony and was seen by the king's daughter, who beckoned to him and he joined her at the foot of a tree. Thus did the sunlight and moonlight mingle their beams of light. The king was told of their meeting and set out for the trysting-place, but before his arrival the minister's wife, realising her husband's peril, sought him and so disguised him that he resembled a monster. When the king finally found his daughter, and saw no one near her but a monster, he was convinced that he had been misinformed, and that his daughter had met no one.

The association of the sun with a floating island is revealed in many legends, and in solar symbolism we find the sun depicted as seated on a floating lotus leaf.

Herodotus tells us that near Buto there was a deep and broad lake in which was a reputed floating island. In this island was a large temple dedicated to the sun. The island was once firm, but it is said when Typhon, who was the sea, was once roaming round the world in pursuit of the solar deity Horus, Latona, who was one of the

primitive eight gods who dwelt in the city of Buto, received him in trust from Isis and concealed him in the island of Chemmis, which then first began to float. Afterwards he became sufficiently powerful to leave his place of refuge and to expel Typhon who had usurped his dominions, and his own reign then commenced.

The myth of Phœbus Apollo is substantially identical with this, and the island of Delos, the birthplace of the Sun-God, corresponds to the floating island Chemmis.

There is another parallel legend among the Peruvians. When all mankind were swept away by the waters of the Deluge, a personage named Viracocha emerged from Lake Titicaca and became the founder of the sacred city of Cuzco. Viracocha was the Sun-God of the Peruvians, and the common ancestor of the race of Incas.

In Lake Titicaca, which is considered sacred by the Peruvians, there is a small island where they claim the Sun-God hid himself and saved his life when the world was destroyed by the waters of the Deluge. On this island there was a temple dedicated to the sun, as there was on the island of Chemmis, the Egyptian island, and the Greek island Delos. These islands were considered holy places.

as peculiarly delighting to haunt the sacred mountain which first raised its head above the retiring waters, and which received the ark. This mountain top, therefore, had the appearance of a floating island which doubtless gave rise to the many myths that represent the sun as navigating the deep.

"The favourite residence of the Greek solar deity was Parnassus. In the Zend Avesta the sun is described as ruling over the world from the top of Mount Albordi which is said to have been the first land that appeared above the waves of the retreating flood.

"The old Orphic poet, the priests of Egypt, and the Brahmas of Hindostan agree in maintaining that the sun was born out of an egg which had floated on the ocean, and which had been tossed about at the mercy of the elements."

The following extremely interesting solar myth of Irish extraction is related in Myths and Myth Makers by John Fiske:

"Long before the Danes ever came to Ireland, there died at Muskerry a Sculloge, or country farmer, who by dint of hard work and close economy had amassed enormous wealth. His only son did not resemble him. When the young Sculloge looked about the house, the day after his father's death, and saw the big chests full of gold

and silver, and the cupboards shining with piles of sovereigns, and the old stockings stuffed with large and small coin, he said to himself, 'Bedad, how shall I ever be able to spend the likes o’ that?' And so he drank, and gambled, and wasted his time in hunting and horse-racing, until after a while he found the chests empty and the cupboards poverty-stricken, and the stockings lean and penniless. Then he mortgaged his farmhouse and gambled away all the money he got for it, and then he bethought him that a few hundred pounds might be raised on his mill. But when he went to look at it, he found the dam broken and scarcely a thimbleful of water in the mill-race, and the wheel rotten, and the thatch of the house all gone, and the upper millstone lying flat on the lower one, and a coat of dust and mould over everything. So he made up his mind to borrow a horse and take one more hunt to-morrow and then reform his habits.

"As he was returning late in the evening from his farewell hunt, passing through a lonely glen he came upon an old man playing backgammon, betting on his left hand against his right, and crying and cursing because the right would win. 'Come and bet with me,' said he to Sculloge. 'Faith, I have but a sixpence in the world,' was the reply; 'but if you like, I'll wager that on the right.'

[paragraph continues] 'Done,' said the old man, who was a Druid; 'if you win I'll give you a hundred guineas.' So the game was played, and the old man, whose right hand was always the winner, paid over the guineas and told Sculloge to go to the Devil with them.

"Instead of following this bit of advice, however, the young farmer went home and began to pay his debts, and next week he went to the glen and won another game, and made the Druid rebuild his mill. So Sculloge became prosperous again, and by and by he tried his luck a third time, and won a game played for a beautiful wife. The Druid sent her to his house the next morning before he was out of bed, and his servants came knocking at the door and crying, 'Wake up, wake up, Master Sculloge, there's a young lady here to see you.' 'Bedad, it's the vanithee 1 herself,' said Sculloge; and getting up in a hurry, he spent three-quarters of an hour in dressing himself. At last he went downstairs, and there on the sofa was the prettiest lady ever seen in Ireland. Naturally, Sculloge's heart beat fast and his voice trembled, as he begged the lady's pardon for this Druidic style of wooing, and besought her not to feel obliged to stay with him unless she really liked him. But the young lady, who was a king's daughter from a far country, was wondrously

charmed with the handsome farmer, and so well did they get along that the priest was sent for without further delay, and they were married before sundown. Sabina was the vanithee's name; and she warned her husband to have no more dealings with Lassa Buaicht, the old man of the glen. So for a while all went happily, and the Druidic bride was as good as she was beautiful. But by and by Sculloge began to think he was not earning money fast enough. He could not bear to see his wife's hands soiled with work, and thought it would be a fine thing if he could only afford to keep a few more servants, and drive about with Sabina in an elegant carriage, and see her clothed in silk and adorned with jewels.

"'I will play one more game and set the stakes high,' said Sculloge to himself one evening, as he sat pondering over these things; and so, without consulting Sabina, he stole away to the glen, and played a game for ten thousand guineas. But the evil Devil was now ready to pounce on his prey, and he did not play as of old. Sculloge broke into a cold sweat with agony and terror as he saw the left hand win. Then the face of Lassa Buaicht grew dark and stern, and he laid on Sculloge the curse which is laid upon the solar hero in misfortune, that he should never sleep twice under the same roof, or ascend the couch of the dawn-nymph,

his wife, until he should have procured and brought to him the sword of light. When Sculloge reached home, more dead than alive, he saw that his wife knew all. Bitterly they wept together, but she told him that with courage all might be set right. She gave him a Druidic horse, which bore him swiftly over land and sea, like the enchanted steed of the Arabian Nights, until he reached the castle of his wife's father, who, as Sculloge now learned, was a good Druid, the brother of the evil Lassa Buaicht. This good Druid told him that the sword of light was kept by a third brother, the powerful magician Fiach O’Duda, who dwelt in an enchanted castle, which many brave heroes had tried to enter, but the dark sorcerer had slain them all. Three high walls surrounded the castle, and many had scaled the first of these, but none had ever returned alive. But Sculloge was not to be daunted, and taking from his father-in-law a black steed, he set out for the fortress of Fiach O’Duda. Over the first high wall nimbly leaped the magic horse, and Sculloge called aloud to the Druid to come out and surrender his sword. Then came out a tall, dark man, with coal-black eyes and hair and melancholy visage, and made a furious sweep at Sculloge with the flaming blade. But the Druidic beast sprang back over the wall in the twinkling of an eye and rescued his rider, leaving,

however, his tail behind in the court-yard. Then Sculloge returned in triumph to his father-in-law's palace, and the night was spent in feasting and revelry.

"Next day Sculloge rode out on a white horse, and when he got to Fiach's castle, he saw the first wall lying in rubbish. He leaped the second, and the same scene occurred as the day before, save that the horse escaped unharmed. The third day Sculloge went out on foot, with a harp like that of Orpheus in his hand, and as he swept its strings the grass bent to listen and the trees bowed their heads. The castle walls all lay in ruins, and Sculloge made his way unhindered to the upper room, where Fiach lay in Druidic slumber, lulled by the harp. He seized the sword of light, which was hung by the chimney sheathed in a dark scabbard, and making the best of his way back to the good king's palace, mounted his wife's steed, and scoured over land and sea until he found himself in the gloomy glen where Lassa Buaicht was still crying and cursing and betting on his left hand against his right.

"'Here, treacherous friend, take your sword of light'; shouted Sculloge in tones of thunder; and as he drew it from its sheath the whole valley was lighted up as with the morning sun, and next moment the head of the wretched Druid was

lying at his feet, and his sweet wife, who had come to meet him, was laughing and crying in his arms."

Some authorities claim that the legend of William Tell is a sun myth. He is admittedly a skilful navigator, a practised archer, and, as the myth relates, after he had successfully emerged from the storm and tempest he leaps at dawn, rejoicing in his freedom on the land, and slays the tyrant who had enslaved him. These facts are all well in accord with those predominating in the typical solar myth.

It is quite impossible in a volume treating of sun lore in all its phases to discuss the solar myth exhaustively. An attempt has been made to indicate that primitive man, wherever he was situated, strove to interpret natural phenomena in the familiar language of his daily existence, and to attribute to the manifestations of physical laws a human agency. The result of this close observation of nature led to the deification of its powers and paved the way for a wealth of imagery, a treasure of myth and legend, which lends colour and brightness to the more sombre pages of the early history of man.

Footnotes

95:1 In this connection it is interesting to note the unexplained association of Orion, the personification of Nimrod, the mighty hunter, and the timid hare. In the constellations we find Orion and Lepus contiguous. That they were designed to be thus closely associated in the heavens cannot be doubted.